[Foundation-l] Akahele: Omidyar venturing out

[Sage Ross]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Gregory Kohs<thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
> Being that it was a topic of rousing discussion here last week, Wikimedians
> may be interested in a brief summary of the Omidyar/Wikimedia/Wikia
> connection, as authored by me and published by the non-profit, Internet
> Review Corporation:
>
> http://akahele.org/2009/08/omidyar-venturing-out/

Thanks Greg.  This is a useful and fairly even-handed piece.  I feel
like your nitpicking of whether the seat was "bought" or whether there
is a "tie" is (pardon the phrase, literature people) just semantics.
What Halprin essentially asserted in the interview with Andrew Lih was
that the grant was not conditional on Halprin being seated on the
board (or retaining his seat after his current appoint ends at the end
of the year).  He didn't deny that, in a social rather than
contractual sense, he was considered for a seat on the board because
of the grant negotiations; in fact, he basically said that he and/or
Omidyar Network expressed interest in a seat on the board because of
the grant negotiations, and as you show, that's pretty typical of the
way that Omidyar Network interacts with non-profits.

I don't see anything that either Halprin or WMF has said about seat
and the grant as evidence of duplicity.

And I dare say that you would avoid the word "bought" too if both your
sister and your $2 million benefactor thought that word had misleading
negative connotations.

-Sage